A.P. LoPorto

Comparisons

2007-12-03T07:59:00.000-05:00

We have been living in Europe for almost five months now. Seems like forever and a day. One of the greatest things about being here is being in my school, which for those of you who don’t know is not an Italian school. It is also not an American school. It is called an “International School” meaning students come from all over the world. Classes are in English because English is almost an international language. Most other developed countries, especially the educated youth, speak english.
Before I left, I was well aware that America had some problems when compared to the rest of the world. But because we are so isolated in both location, and by the media which informs us little of the goings on in other nations, I was not sure exactly how deep those differences go, and how serious they are.

I have students in my classes from France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Japan, Mexico, and of course the United States. I am sure there are other nations represented at the school, I just haven’t met those kids yet.

Just like one of my other posts said, I have been here so long that I rarely ponder on the state of the USA lately. The news here does report in depth about what goes on at home, especially the printed media, which is incredible, but I don’t watch TV and never buy newspapers. Just don’t have the time. But a few days ago we had a conversation with some friends of ours that made me start thinking again.

His name is Aldo, and we went out for dinner with he and his girlfriend Daniella. We started talking about how cheap it is to travel in Europe. All of the public transportation is government-run, including the international train systems, which are sponsored by the EU to increase the ease and lessen the expense of travel. Also, there are many “socialized” airlines, funded by various governments. According to Aldo, he goes back to Spain, where he is originally from, to visit family quite often. The cost? Around 40 euro round trip. You couldn’t fly from New York to Philly for $40, or even $100. The difference? Means of travel are public services, rather than money making ventures. The American way to look at this is to think: dirty planes, untrained pilots, unsafe in general; the average non-subjective American view of anything that is government-run and therefore “socialist” or worse, the dreaded “communist.” But on the contrary, planes are new and up-to-date. Employees are friendly (far more friendly than in the US), pilots are well trained and safety records are strong. In fact, where in the United States we are increasingly allowing airlines to govern themselves by allowing them to do their own inspections, in the EU the government is getting increasingly involved in this process. After all, we know it is absurd to allow a corporation to set their own safety standards. But in the States, this is becoming more and more popular, unbeknownst to the average citizen: they don’t talk about it on Fox or CNN.

This led to another conversation: the typical American view of foreign healthcare, especially those systems that are “universal” or, in other terms, “free”. Italy is one of those countries. Like most developed nations, actually, like ALL developed nations other than the US, Italy’s healthcare system is completely free to all citizens, and depending on the severity of the issue, free for foreigners as well. To explain that a little: if you are a foreigner and you come and get a cold, it will cost you about €60 to see a doctor, plus the cost of a prescription, which is always far less than in the States. If you have a heart attack and go to the hospital, all of your care will be free, even as a non-citizen. All of this comes from the fact that people here believe that people should care about people. Instead of those who can pay simply paying for themselves, and the lesser of us getting stepped on, here, and in all other developed nations, those who can pay pay for everyone. You get the same service regardless of who you are.

Again, the typical American view of public health care systems is that hospitals are dirty, doctors are overworked and under-trained, facilities are second-rate, wait times are long, and the list goes on. Again, completely untrue. I have been to the hospital in the US. Several times actually. When my wife cut her finger and we had to go to the emergency room, we waited upwards of five hours to see someone, with only about four people in the waiting room with us. Then we saw a medical student, not a doctor, who ran her finger under water and put crazy glue on it. The bill was around $2,800, which our insurance company tried very hard to get out of paying. Our co-pay was about $250. Insane considering we paid over $800 a month for our insurance.

Before we left for Italy, upon telling someone I met we were coming here, her reply was, “that’s great. Just don’t get sick.” What Aldo said about the American perception of the Italian system was this:

“The conditions and expertise of the doctors at the Sanitaria (public hospitals) is great. You don’t wait long, they are very clean and very up to date. If it weren’t like this, the Italians would be in the streets and there would be riots. It has happened before.”

Maybe American’s poor views of public systems stem from our own very poor public systems. Our “public” hospitals, or clinics, are a disgrace, and most government-run agencies are a disaster, aside from the Postal Service which is okay in my book.

I saw Michael Moore’s film, Sicko, and something an American living in France said was very similar to what Aldo had told me about Italians. She said, essentially, that the government in France is scared of the people. Whereas in the States, the people are scared of the government.

How true this is. What happened to our revolutionary spirit? What happened to Americans being highly informed people who react when things aren’t right? What happened to the Boston Tea Party and the Revolutionary War?

Did you know that in both France and Sweden, and I’m sure many other nations, women get one year off, with fully pay, after having a baby? After we had Giada, Emily got six weeks and our payment was about $175 a week minus taxes. Thank God I decent a good paying job, and we had special living circumstances that allowed us to easily afford everything we needed. But, had we been in a normal situation, things would have been much different. Imagine a single mom trying to run a household on $175 a week minus taxes? It is impossible.

Additionally, most other developed countries get a minimum of four paid weeks off every year. In Italy, people take the entire month of August off. It is just the way it is. If the government, or employers, try to take away any vacations, people take to the streets. In the States, you have to be a millionaire to take off four or five weeks. Here, four or five is a minimum. Many people get as many as eight weeks off. Yes. Eight weeks. Two months.

One of the reasons for the successes of these public systems is that, because they are public, a lot of attention is payed to prevention. In the US, we have a reactionary system. When people get sick, our system responds to make them well (or make them even sicker). In many US hospitals, the goal is not to make people well, but to keep them in the hospital for as long as possible, and to put them on as many medications as possible, therefore maximizing profits for the health care system. Little attention is paid to general overall health. After all, if we were healthy, they system wouldn’t make as much money.
On the contrary, when you have a public system, it is in the government’s interest to make sure the public is healthy. A healthier public means less money spent on health care. For this reason, doctors in many countries with public systems get bonuses when they do such things as to get clients to stop smoking, or loose weight, or lower their cholesterol. Also, a public health care system leads to other government actions to protect the public. For example, hormones in meat are banned in the EU, because they have been proven to cause a myriad of health problems. Mercury has been completely banned in the EU for many years. We still use it in our vaccines. The EU has stricter standards on chemicals in electronics, which cause over 70% of our own landfill pollution, but make up only a small fraction of actual items in landfills. The list goes on and on, but hopefully you get my point: a public system means the government is concerned with the health of the public. This doesn’t mean they invade your home and make you loose weight, it means that they make sure you have available to you, for free, many preventative systems: nutritionists, chiropractors, psychiatrists, etc, and they give doctors an incentive to make sure you are healthy.

Knowing all this to be a fact, I am wondering more and more… what are we doing back at home in the USA? Why are we fighting so hard against this system? We already have “socialized systems” like our schools, postal service, other domestic services, some transportation, social security and medicare (which are both screwed up, but that’s another issue of corruption and greed). What are we waiting for? When will we get back the spirit of our forefathers? When will we take to the streets and be heard? When will we demand that all men not only be created equal in theory, but be treated equally? Maybe then, Americans will again have a longer life-span than people living in Cuba (whose life-spans surpass ours, probably due to the fact that their healthcare is top-notch, and also free).

One of the people in Sicko said something great, a British man speaking about why Great Britain, after being devastated by the second world war, had created a public health care system. In summary, he said this (no quotes because it is not a quote):
After WWII Britain was devastated. During the war the economy had been very strong. People all working to build bombs and tanks and guns. After the war, I suppose people figured, if we can employ people to build bombs and guns, why can’t we employ them to build schools and hospitals and libraries? If we can find the money to kill people, we can surely find the money to help people.

He also pointed out, very truly, that public health care is a very democratic idea. He said that democracy moved the power from the wealthy class and the corporations to the ballot box. From the rich to the poor. Before democracy, health care was only accessible to the rich. You got what you paid for. So what more of a democratic idea could it be than to move the power from the rich few to the masses of lower and middle class people?

He also made a very good connection to 9/11 in the US, and WWII in G.B. He pointed out how Americans all banded together after 9/11 to help each other. There was solidarity between us. In Great Britain, over 40,000 civilians were killed during WWII. The solidarity felt between the citizens of this nation could not have been stronger. It was in this atmosphere that their public health system was created. Additionally, Great Britain was in horrible shape after the war. It’s cities were destroyed, and the government was nearly bankrupt. It was in these conditions that they created a very successful public health system. Imagine the one the US could create?

One more fact: the US health care system is the most expensive system in the world. In other words, we as American pay more for health care than any other nation on earth. Therefore, Americans fear of high taxes when paying into a public health system is debunked. People in France and Italy (and everywhere else) pay far less in taxes to be included in their public system than we in American pay in insurance premiums and co-pays to be a part of our private one.

I could go on and on about this. I know many people back in the States just think that things will work themselves out. This is unfortunately not true. Many others think that they will just let their neighbors worry about it. We are all too busy and overworked to be messing around with protests and making demands of the government. But maybe we all have to sacrifice a little for our children and grandchildren. If there are 50 million Americans who have no insurance, and are unable to receive medical attention, how many will there be when my daughter is grown up? Will she be one of them? Will she have to go through her days hoping and praying that her kids don’t get sick?

This is a ranking of the world’s health care systems according to the World Health Organization (sorry it is horizontal, just copied and pasted from WHO site and this is how it came out. No way I was typing all of this):

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei
41 New Zealand
42 Bahrain
43 Croatia
44 Qatar
45 Kuwait
46 Barbados
47 Thailand
48 Czech Republic
49 Malaysia
50 Poland
51 Dominican Republic
52 Tunisia
53 Jamaica
54 Venezuela
55 Albania
56 Seychelles
57 Paraguay
58 South Korea
59 Senegal
60 Philippines
61 Mexico
62 Slovakia
63 Egypt
64 Kazakhstan
65 Uruguay
66 Hungary
67 Trinidad and Tobago
68 Saint Lucia
69 Belize
70 Turkey
71 Nicaragua
72 Belarus
73 Lithuania
74 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
75 Argentina
76 Sri Lanka
77 Estonia
78 Guatemala
79 Ukraine
80 Solomon Islands
81 Algeria
82 Palau

The list goes on, but you get the point. We pay more than everyone else, per person, and we receive less. What's wrong with that picture?

*I know that a lot of people arbitrarily dislike Michael Moore. Unfortunately, most of those people have not seen his films, or have watched them with a completely closed mind and so have gotten nothing out of them. In some senses, his movies May be “biased.” Maybe he doesn’t show any of the problems in other nations health care systems, and maybe doesn’t point out one single positive point about George Bush (are there any?). But the fact remains that his movies are factual. There are no half-truths or made up tales. That’s why all anybody can say about his work is that they don’t like him; he’s fat or ignorant.

If someone were to find something untrue in one of his movies, you can bet it would make headlines across the US. Bill O’Reilly would be talking about it for weeks on end. That hasn’t happened yet, after all these years, and so that must lead us to believe everything is 100% true. On top of that, our media is completely one-sided too. Even the more “liberal” of networks rarely go near serious issues like this. Forget Fox news. So why not see the other side of the story? Few people freak out and refuse to watch the main stream news networks, so why all the complaining and boycotting of Moore’s films? If you haven’t seen Bowling for Columbine, Roger and Me, Fahrenheit 9/11 and most importantly, Sicko, go see them. Or better yet, if you don’t want to give him your money, download them for free, like I did. You can’t preach against something if you aren’t even familiar with it.

what it means to have less

2007-08-26T07:44:00.000-04:00

I have been living in Italy for a while now, and being here here is teaching me something I never would have thought I needed to learn. It is showing me what it means to have less.

This is something I knew before, but it makes it so much more concrete to live in the midst of it. I am seeing, very clearly, how much of the rest of the developed world lives, the good and the bad.

People here live with less. Fewer clothes, smaller apartments, riding bikes, walking, or at least driving small cars. They eat less, drink less, watch less TV, don’t buy all the latest technology as soon as it hits the shelves, and life moves a little slower.
Some things here in Florence are very cheap. Fresh vegetables at the markets are at such low prices you can absentmindedly buy almost anything, including things like berries, which are usually fairly expensive in the US. Chicken is fairly cheap, red meat a bit more, but fish is quite expensive (because it is always so fresh, but we aren’t near a sea, so it is carted in very quickly; less than 24 hours from catch to market).

Many other things are extremely expensive: all types of electronics, dog food and dog medicines, things like notebooks and paper, clothes are exorbitantly expensive, and the list goes on. We have spent a lot of money since our arrival, just buying things that are necessary for us to get settled in.

This was all starting to dismay and confuse me. How could people live when things are so expensive? How do you buy a pair of shoes when they are all at least €100,00, if not more?

But then I read an interview with Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement, at odemagazine.com. Petrini said something that made me see clearly one of the major differences between life here and life in the US. Petrini was asked if he thought maybe his movement was sort of ridiculous because only upper-middle class people to wealthy people could think about living life the way he believes it should be lived: buying quality goods from local businesses, rather than supporting huge corporations selling bland, low quality products. Petrini’s focus is on food, but his views cover every aspect of life.
Petrini’s response was, “It’s not that quality food - organic, made with local ingredients - is too expensive; it’s that the other food is too cheap.”

This statement made me look at things here in a different light. I realized why things here are the way they are here. First off, almost everything you buy comes from somewhere in Italy. It is built here, grown here, or stitched together here. These people cherish quality over the quantity of objects they own. They would rather one bottle of good wine than five bottles of bad wine. They would rather two pairs of nice leather shoes than fifteen pairs from Payless. When it breaks, they repair it.

Not that they don’t have their bargain shops here, and their bargain shoppers. But the mood, on a large scale, is different. I read an article the other day about a fairly large protest that went on somewhere in Italy (Milan, I believe?) to try to get the government to crack down on illegal imports from China. Mostly clothing and food products. Their slogan was “Hands Off Italian Quality”. They don’t want tomatoes from China, they want tomatoes from Italian soil, grown using Italian traditions and following their quality standards. They don’t want leather from China, they want leather from Florence, stitched by an Italian leather shop that cares about the quality if its products. They want leather bags that cost a lot and last 20 years.

Although sometimes I miss H&M’s cheap button down shirts, printing without thinking about the cost of the paper I’m using, or having a car... I’m starting to get used to it. I have always believed that quality is important, and that we should be purchasing locally produced goods, and supporting local businesses. It is eye opening to see what that actually means. It is good, but hard to get used to when I am used to going to K-Mart for a hamper.

But, thank God, there is an IKEA.

The Mexico is to the US as the _____ is to Europe?

2007-08-15T23:38:00.000-04:00

News stands here in Florence are much like those in New York City. They carry every paper you can image, in every language you can think of. The obvious ones (English, French, German, etc) plus several Arabic and Asian languages, Dutch, and others. They carry the New York Times, the Financial Times and US Weekly.

However, a New York Times is somewhere around €7 (about $10.00). Needless to say I don’t buy any English newspapers.
But this morning I discovered something wonderful. Yesterdays newspapers are placed in a pile outside the news stand at the end of the day. So, aside from breaking news, which I don’t care much for anyhow, I am free to rummage all I want through the pile and pick out as many papers as I like completely free of charge. And they don’t remove the covers like they do in New York.

This morning over toast and coffee I read the European edition of the Wall Street Journal. I am finding that living here, reading these papers, and talking to the people in my community, I am now on the outside looking in at what is going on inside the United States. I am now a bit of a bystander.

One article in particular stood out to me as amazing. Basically, it was talking about European car manufacturers, mainly Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. These automakers lost billions (VW lost almost 4 billion alone) over the past several years due to an unstable American dollar that has dropped sharply against the euro. The dollar used to outweigh the euro in both worth and stability, but this is no longer so. These car companies cannot afford to pull out of the American market, because sales are far too high, but their bottom line is being hit by the fact that when they take their money back here to the European Union, they are loosing upwards of 37%, and this being on goods built in the EU, with workers paid in euros. This essentially makes their manufacturing cost high in comparison to their return. Much like a car built in New York City being sold in Mexico City. Financial planning is also difficult when dealing with unstable currencies as payment for products manufactured in an area with a strong one.

Because the dollar has dropped so low against the euro, with no signs pointing towards a recovery, it is no longer cost effective for them to manufacture their cars within the EU, as they have always done, and ship them to the United States. So instead, Europe’s largest automakers are planning to largely increase their production within the United States. They figure, the dollar can go up and down all it wants: American cars will be built using American dollars, and the workers will be paid with that same currency, therefore the car companies are more immune to a rising and falling US dollar. A falling dollar merely means lower manufacturing costs, a rising dollar means a stronger return on their monetary transfers to the EU.
In other words, the US is becoming cheap labor. It might sound good at first: America’s big automakers are cutting jobs by the tens of thousands to go to China and Mexico, so hopefully this will make up for some of the losses. But what are the implications? What are the losses both short and long term? To me, it appears as if the US is becoming Europe’s China or Mexico. Yes, factory workers may make a decent wage working for BMW or Volkswagen, but at what long-term cost? Will the US stifle itself, and become a processing plant for goods bought up by middle and upper-class Europeans whose money, in the global economy, is worth twice that of their American counterpart’s? This is also an ironic shift, what with America’s big five off-shoring their own labor.

Where does something like this put us on the totem pole? Somewhere in the middle I suppose.

living in italia.

2007-08-07T22:20:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since American politics has made it’s way into my mind enough to sit down and write about it. A year ago I could have written novels. But for the past six months all I have been thinking about is Italy. First, preparing for the news, and now just getting used to living here have been taking all my brain power. Plus, a New York Times is about €6, so there is no way I’m buying one. I suppose it is good though. I have been able to clear my mind. But I have signed us up for our absentee ballots, which I have no doubt will not be counted, but we’ll mail them in anyhow.

But yesterday I did go to NYtimes.com and read a few articles. The first letting the American public know that Bush had successfully legalized his warrant-less wiretapping program. Now, all international calls and emails can be listened in on without a warrant. They legitimized it by saying, basically, that they aren’t listening to the American citizen, but the foreign person on the other line. So if you call or email your friend in London, they can listen and intercept and it is 100% legal. It essentially says that an American does not have the right to talk to a non-American (or a friend or relative on vacation!) without possibly being listened to.

I know what the argument against me would be: “I’ve got nothing to hide! Anyone who doesn’t want people listening has something to hide.” It has nothing to do with having something to hide or not. It has to do with basic liberties and the “slippery slope” (G.W.’s favorite term these days) it takes us down. Free and uninhibited speech is an essential part of a free political system. It is the idea behind removing rights that is the issue here. Any invasion of privacy is a removal of an essential American liberty, and any removal of one of these essential liberties puts the state of our Union in danger.

“He who is willing to give up freedom or liberty in the name of safety deserves neither freedom nor liberty.” - Benjamin Franklin

I’ve said it before and I will say it again... there are risks that come with living in a free nation. The safest places to live are places with strong, invasive government systems, where the ruling authority knows what is going on in everyone’s lives and exerts control over its people.

This is a whole other issue to get into, but we all want a sense of safety, and in short, I don’t think that starting needless wars that lead to the deaths of up to 500,000 innocent civilians, and angering the entire world is the way to be at peace with ourselves and the world. Living life that way will give you as much peace as going out an killing all the people you don’t like. You would constantly make new enemies and spend your life looking over your shoulder. Like telling a lie, it’s necessary to keep lying to cover up for the one before. Each enemy we destroy creates more enemies. The only way to truly be at peace in the end doing things this way is to kill every single one of them.

You are better off, on both a personal and national scale, reducing the number of enemies you have to deal with in a diplomatic fashion. There will always be evil people bent on destruction... but at the very least having a kind and generous heart towards the rest of the population of the earth would engender a feeling of kindness and goodwill towards the people of the US. In reducing our fear we have been 100% wrong these past few years.

As someone who lived in very close proximity to New York City all his life, with many friends and relatives living there, I can tell you my fear level has increased exponentially since our invasion of Iraq. The soldiers who have constantly been a presence on the streets of New York since then are a constant reminder. People living in non-danger zones have no capacity to truly understand living with this fear of the multitude of new enemies that we have created.

So reading this article saying that the battle to preserve our right to not have our personal correspondence invaded upon is very disheartening. What happened to this great new democratic congress and senate we supposedly elected? Oh, they were all out campaigning so not to be ousted by the next billionaire who wants to run for senate. Oh well.

stepping carefully forward

2007-07-02T16:12:00.000-04:00

This is my way of lashing out when I have too much to say and my brain overflows. My wife probably thinks I open my mouth too much, which is likely the truth, but if she only knew how many times I kept my mouth shut she would be very surprised. Maybe even impressed.

I wrote another blog a while back about prudence. That was in relation to the argument about global warming. My basic point was that it can’t hurt to cut back our carbon emissions, but it CAN hurt to continue on our present path.
Prudence, or playing it safe, can be applied to almost all aspects of life, especially in the area of personal health.
People may think my wife and I are too crazy about keeping ourselves and our daughter away from chemicals. We eat only organic foods at home, we neither keep or use poisonous cleaners in the house (we use natural alternatives to the regular scrubbing bubbles and windex), shy away from taking medications unless absolutely necessary, and even dress our daughter in chemical free clothing.

People might think that is overkill. But what’s the harm? I find it amazing that people think it is strange to wear clothes not sprayed with formaldehyde, but think it is normal to eat strawberries sprayed with highly-toxic chemicals designed not to be washed off by water.

If we look at the prevalence of cancer, auto-immune disorders, autism, ADD, turrets syndrome, and the many other illnesses plaguing our society, it makes you wonder where it all comes from.

I read a great article a while back that said, “it is impossible to link common chemicals with common illnesses.” Imagine trying to test every possible effect of formaldehyde transferred from an infants skin to their body? How do you link that formaldehyde exposure at 3 months of age to asthma at four years? You can’t.

So the answer for me is just to stay away from it. There are literally thousands of new chemicals introduced into our food, clothing, furniture, air and water every year, and very few of them are tested at all. None are tested for every possible effect because it is absolutely impossible to do so. To think that they are all tested to be 100% safe is at best ignorant, and at worst just a personal choice to ignore the obvious - which is likely a sin that puts you and your family in harms way.

maybe i'm missing something here?

2007-05-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

I am having a lot of trouble understanding people anymore. George Bush’s approval rating is quite low, according to the polls, but there seem to still be a whole lot of people who, even if they disapprove of his handling of the Iraq war, still support him and his party nonetheless.

I don’t get it. If you ask almost any hard-line Republican why they are a Republican or a “Conservative” and they will list several reasons, mostly: they want a smaller, less invasive government, they are pro-life, and they are against “gay marriage”.

Do people realize that the Bush white house, elected on these platforms, have done absolutely nothing for any of these causes? What’s worse, is that they don’t even have the excuse that they tried, but their efforts were squashed by congress, the senate, or the supreme court.

These people, elected on the Conservative-issue platform, have had a rubber-stamp congress, and have been able to appoint not one but two supreme court justices! No other White House in history (that I can think of) has had such a luxury!

If Bush really wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade, he could have. If he wanted to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, congress and the judiciary would have let him - after all, he practically handpicked them. Furthermore, our government and its reach into our personal lives has grown exponentially in the past six years.

So why do people still support him on the whole “less invasive government, family values” platform? I just don’t get it. Maybe someone can enlighten me. Maybe i’m missing something here.

justice again.

2007-05-05T21:45:00.000-04:00

Last year, due to increasing and un-relenting pressure from the people of England, and even from his own Labor Party, Tony Blair announced he would resign sometime before September of 2007. The reason the public felt he should step down was largely due to his involvement in our war with Iraq. The British seem to feel Blair had joined haphazardly, backing the U.S. without sufficient weighing of the facts involved, and therefore endangering the lives of British soldiers without good cause. It was bad form to the highest degree. The British appear quite angry their own men and women had been killed in Iraq... specifically when they, the British public, realized there was never any “imminent threat” posed by Iraq against themselves or against us (the U.S.). In fact, one of Britain’s only terrorist attacks to date happened after the Iraqi invasion (the July 2005 London subway bombing).

Now we see another similar case which is currently (not) making the regular news. The people of Israel have called for their Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to step down. Their reasons? The greatest was that he led them into a summer-long war against Lebanon. The citizens feel that Olmert went to war without a clear-cut reason, without a strategy for fighting, winning, or exiting.

Sound familiar?

I simply do not understand anymore. The people of both Britain and Israel realize that a Commander who leads their country into war without a reason and without a plan, and causes the death of their fellow citizens, no longer deserves to lead, and indeed has shown himself an unfit commander.

How many more American soldiers have to be killed or maimed before the American public wakes up and impeaches George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and everyone else involved in dragging us into this Iraq quagmire?

Some figures, as of January 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Defense:

U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq: 3,021 (now over 3,500)
British Soldiers Killed: 129
Iraqi Soldiers/Police Killed: 5,965
Iraqi Civilians Killed: 70,100 - 601,000 (estimated)
Defense Contractors Killed: 665
Journalists Killed: 146
American Soldiers Wounded: 23,000

Saddam Hussein was put to death for killing 128 people.

Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” in 2003, with less than 500 American soldiers killed.

That was four years and 3,000 American deaths ago.

who is keeping score?

2007-05-04T18:31:00.001-04:00

Something really interesting is happening in the world of political jargon right now, and has been for several weeks. Democrats in congress are being accused of merely “trying to score political points” by attempting to set a timetable to end the increasingly un-popular war in Iraq. These accusations come directly from the President and Vice President, as well as many other high-ranking officials. In fact, President Bush himself has said the words “trying to score political points” countless times when referring to Democratic (and some Republican) members of House and Senate who voted in favor of the recent spending bill with a troop pull-out date included in its pages.

Does the President forget that congressmen and senators are representatives of the will of the people? It is the job of a congressman (or woman) or senator to vote in a manner that they feel will get them re-elected next time around. By seeking re-election, they are submitting to the will of the voters in their district. That is the basis of a congress and a senate.

So maybe Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are forgetting that it is the job of the House and Senate not to follow the will of the executive office, but rather the will of the people who elected them to their positions. “Scoring political points” with the voters is the point.

And maybe Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney also forget that they, too, are elected officials - charged with submitting to the will of the American public. Very possibly, they forget that they are officials elected by the general public, not kings. Let’s just hope the voters remind them of that in 2008.

Also at: web.mac.com/aploporto

support from all sides.

2007-04-30T19:34:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I saw a disturbing video of Presidential candidate John McCain singing “bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boy’s “Barbara Ann”. More disturbing was the fact that the audience applauded him.

What is wrong with people in this country?

I have few close friends, and one of them is in the army reserves. He spent a year in Kuwait, and is now looking at the real possibility of having to return to Iraq this September. he is my best friend.

War is nothing to be singing a jingle about. Even if the need to invade Iran were more than clear cut (in reality, it is as grey as the “imminent threat” posed by Iraq in 2001), I would hope that Americans would take war a little more seriously than that. Even if Hitler’s army were storming the shores of Manhattan island, it would not be something to sing about.

With all this talk about how the Democrats in congress aren’t “supporting the troops” because they won’t give money without a withdrawal date, I find it saddening that many Americans allow, and encourage, the type of thing that Senator McCain did. Does the Senator not remember that people really loose their lives in war? Does he not realize that his “bomb-bomb-bomb” diddy will mean that a child will never see her father or mother again? Or that they might come home so disabled that they cannot hold down even a simple job? It’s obvious that the Senator doesn’t have a best friend who may have to go to Iran if we invade. But I do.

We have to take this country back. It is now or never. Democrats in congress are being accused of letting the troops down because they want them to come home. People who criticize the President’s policies are called “un-American.” This war should have never been started. If this were any other nation there would have been more than an impeachment against the President. He and the people around him have led us into a war that has killed over 3,500 American soldiers, and at least 40,000 innocent Iraqi civilians.

This is so upsetting to me that I honestly find it hard to talk about.

Now Entering Iraq: No Outlet

2006-12-20T10:19:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a while since I have written. My wife had a baby on November 19th, and I think I may have slept a total of around seven hours since then. But everything went well nonetheless.

It is amazing that anything has been able to keep my mind off of political issues for even two minutes, much less one whole month, but it has been that long since I have sat here working myself into a frenzy over every cholesterol-ridden politician I see on TV. But this morning, listening to NPR, the rage returned over a topic that has been and will be continually beaten to death, but only because it is of the utmost imporance.

What the hell is going on in Iraq? I was thinking back to 2002-2003 when I was going to Manhattanville College right outside New York City. George Bush and Co. were in the process of leading us into war with Iraq, using 9/11 as justification. I, along with many of my fellow students, ardently opposed any military action against Iraq. Even with no access to classified documents, using only logic and easily obtained information, we knew Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States, and we also knew that we could not succeed in establishing a successful government there. A successful revolution must be one of the people, not of an outside force.

Amazing how right we college kids were.

Here is what infuriated me this morning: There is all this talk about Iraq, about sending more troops, evacuating troops, and what to do now. But nobody is looking back and wondering what we should have done in the first place. I think that learning from your mistakes is the sign of a strong individual, and a strong Nation. Why doesn't any politician have the guts to go on national television and say, "We shouldn't have gone in there in the first place." That's all a lot of us want. I would like someone to acknowledge that the millions of us who disagreed with the invasion from the get-go were right. The reason for war that was given to the American public and our representatives was an "imminent threat" of nuclear or chemical invation by Iraq. Back in 2002, President Bush said that the next warning sign may be a "mushroom cloud over New York City." Millions of Americans, including many intelligence officials, disagreed. Now we all know the dissenters were dead right, and if these politicians really want to unite the American public, they need to come to grips with the reality that almost all Americans now understand clearly. That reality is that the war in Iraq was a mistake from the beginning, but now the mess has been made and we need to figure out how to clean it up.

On to the topic of the cleanup... I believe it is virtually impossible. We can send a million soldiers into Iraq to try to kill every single "insurgent" (which is really a resistance, not an insurgency, because these people are fighting on their own home soil). But for nearly every resister we kill, we will unavoidably kill an innocent civillian, and every innocent civilian we kill will create three new resisters. A third party cannot establish a successful democracy, particularly by killing 50,000+ innocent civilians, maiming countless more, and destroying all infrastructure in the process.

Imagine you are living in the New World in the year 1776, and you are a bit angry at the way the far-off British government is treating you. Then, France shows up. They kill half your family, burn your entire city, and tell you they are doing it for your own good. They say they are going to establish a government ruled by the citizens of the New World, and then leave. I would wager all of us would tell France to get the fuck out, thank you very much, but we can take care of ourselves. This is the situation in Iraq.

Sadaam Hussein has been convicted of killing 128 people. This is a heinus act that should not go unpunnished. We have admitted killing a minimum of 30,000 civilians in Iraq, and that figure was one given by our President, who is not known for his tendency to tell the truth. It was also a statistic given over a year ago, and included only deaths directly attributed to conflict (i.e. people who were shot or blown up). It did not inlcude those that died of hunger, thirst, disease, or any of the myriad of other possibilities, nor did it include undocumented deaths, which will inevitably be many in a war-torn country with no established rule or order. It is safe to say the figure is at least double that. What makes it all so disgusting - so vile - is that we now know that going into Iraq was pointless.

There were no WMDs, and there was no "imminent threat" (see my previous post entitled "I must _____ or the terrorists will win!" steadfastness, or just stupidity?" Part 2). So these civilian deaths can hardly be called "collateral damage," or "casualties" because such labels on human lives require a reason for their "sacrifice." That reason was the protection of the American public from a very real threat. That threat turned out to be bogus, and it turns out that our President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defence, among others, knew far more of how baseless this threat was than they originally led us to believe.

So I ask you, who is the greater criminal? Saddam Hussein, or our own president? Which is worse, 128 lives, or 30,000+? Neither is excusable. Our own leaders cannot expected international respect when they have far more blood on their hands that Saddam Hussein.

We will never "succeed" in Iraq. The best American politicans can hope or plan for is another catastrophe, or another war, to take the public's eye off Iraq long enough to install a new ruthless dictator who is friendly to our oil interests, and withdraw our troops quietly. Iraq will be far worse off than it was before, but it won't matter to America if they can keep it off the television. Otherwise, we will be there until every Iraqi is dead.

Leave now, or leave later, we will get the same result, which is Iraq spiraling out of control into factional civil war, and inevitably another dictator. We made a big mess. I just wish someone would admit our fault, then plea for the support they will need from Americans and the international community so that maybe we will have the slighest chance of restoring some semblance of order to the region. Everybody already knows the war was wrong in the first place. Politicians are just ignoring the elephant in the room and making themselves look like complete morons by doing so.

the truth is almost always dirty.

2006-11-03T09:05:00.000-05:00

We have all been listening to it for the better part of a week now - that is, comments about John Kerry's "botched joke." We all know what he said, and any American with half a brain knows what he meant. And honestly, all of it is really starting to piss me off.

It was a joke aimed at the President of the United States (who'se name is George W. Bush, for those of you who don't follow current events). Our current President is a person who did not "study hard," "do [his] homework," or "make an effort to be smart," therefore he (George Bush) got "stuck in Iraq." I actually think it's a pretty funny joke. George W was a "D Student," always just scraping by. It's no wonder he bankrupted Texas as governor, and is currently in the business of bankrupting the United States with his bad policies and his endless, illogical war. That was the premise of the "botched joke" that republicans are attempting to blindside the democrats with in the final sprint of the congressional/senatorial election. I thought it was pretty easy to grasp.

But let's say Kerry WAS actually talking about the troops. Let's say he WAS saying that the kids doing the fighting over in Iraq are largely uneducated. You know what? He's right! In general, our wars have been and probably always will be fought by our poor and our uneducated. Do any of us honestly believe there are more than a handful of upper-middle class white kids fighting in the streets of Baghdad right now? I don't, and I won't pretend that equality actually exists in the United States, or anywhere else for that matter. It isn't right, and I'm not defending it, but it is still a fact - politically correct or not. I believe that if this sad reality was grasped and understood fully by more Americans, the tides would turn on senseless wars.

I have a close friend who was in the middle east for a year. Thankfully, he was not stationed in Iraq, but in Kuwait. When I told him my opinion about Kerry's comment (that, like it or not, the guy is sadly correct) he affirmed my belief. He said that most of his unit was made up of minorities, including several hispanics who weren't even citizens of the United States, but had joined up simply to make some money, and hopefully shorten the wait time to become citizens. But every person in his unit, and nearly every front-line soldier he came in contact with had one thing in common: they were all poor, and most were uneducated.

That is why people join the army in the first place. It's that sign in the window that says, "$30,000 for college when you join." Why else would someone want to risk their life? Our standing army is made up largely of people who had few other places to turn. Even my friend is from a family with little money, and the army resrve seemed like his way into a good college to earn his degree in physics. That was seriously interrupted by the Bush regime's propoganda assault on the American public, and their consequential Iraq War battle cry. Fortunately for my friend, he made it back alive (several in his unit were killed), but not so for 2,700+ other young blue collar Americans, and countless more who will have to live the remainder of their lives maimed, crippled, or otherwise (who also have to live with this republican-congress' cutbacks on veterans' health care and aid).

So whether John Kerry meant to or not, and whether or not is politically correct to say so, we need to have the guts to admit to ourselves that the kids dying in Iraq are mostly poor, and mostly uneducated. They can spell and read and write - that isn't the point. But I would wager that not many of them went to Harvard. All Harvard kids, same as George W. Bush, can always wiggle their way out of being in any real danger, and never would a $30,000 promise for education assistance entice them to pick up a gun, fly to Iraq, and risk getting killed or loosing a limb. $30,000 would barely even cover one semester of college for them, and they don't have to pay for it anyhow.

On top of all this, I am so tired of the democrats always feeling the need to be sorry for everything they do. Mark Foley practically molests a little boy, Tom DeLay steals millions from American citizens, as does Keneth Lay, and the republicans just brush it aside - "no big deal, Mark Foley is a good man. His mother was an alcoholilc and he was molested by a priest." How come the Democrats can't just say, "John Kerry is a good person and a great leader. This is what he meant by saying that, and we stand by him." The republicans have solidarity to the point of stupidity - but the democrats are always on the run, and ready to jump ship on one another at any moment. They need to start putting their foot down and taking firm stances on things. Look how it's worked for the President. He STILL can't admit that things are bad in Iraq, and it's working for him, despite the obvious reality that he is dead wrong. Americans, particularly "conservatives," like to see solidarity and a willingness to stick to your guns, even to the point of insanity, a trait that the President wears on his sleeve.

Furthermore, I think the democrats would do well to make a point of saying, "you know what? Whether he meant to or not, Kerry brings up a very good point - our nation's lower and middle classes ARE the ones that are getting killed over there. We need to take this Nation back from the rich warmongers who think it is acceptable to kill 2,700 kids in a needless war, and turn it over to the middle class where it belongs." I think that they would have every blue-collar worker behind them on that one. It makes this power stuggle one of the rich against the poor - and there are a lot more poor people.

The democrats are always way too indecisive, and who can blame them? They are completely terrified of the GOP power machine that owns this nation, and they always will unless the public outcry is so much that it cannot be silenced. The democrats could accomplish this by taking a firm and bold stance on issues that really matter to the lower and middle classes, by speaking their minds, and not apologizing for it.

when only prudence matters

2006-10-30T10:40:00.000-05:00

Five or six years ago I was in a disgusting sleeping bag on the floor of a hotel somewhere in the far reaches of the United States. I honestly cannot remember where I was, but it doesn't really matter at all. Being nowhere is always best. That night I overheard, and then interrupted, a conversation I will never forget. It was between a man who, at the time, I had great respect for, and a girl whom I respected for approximately twenty minutes when I first met her, then came to despise greatly. Nonetheless, at that moment I stuck up for her.

The man was a Christian pro-life activist with a lot of problems, and the girl was a self-righteous hippie Christian with blue hair that stank like she had planted something in it which had long ago turned soggy, and was in a state of severe decay. Let's call the girl Sarah and the man Brian.

The conversation was this: Sarah's sister was (and possibly still is) a deeply depressed lesbian addicted to pain killers and slicing her forearms with scissors. Brian, being the all-knowing God fearing man he was, was trying to explain to Sarah that God predestined people to either be those who will enter into "the kingdom of heaven," or one of those who wouldn't, and that her sister was obviously predestined to live a godless life and then go to hell where God had intended her to be. I think that maybe, in his own twisted way, Brian was trying to comfort her by insisting that she was doing all she could for her sister, and that God had simply intended for her to live a hopeless life.

I listened for quite some time before I got so fuming mad I couldn't contain myself. Everyone was surprised when I shot up out of my pretended sleep and started yelling. Essentially, this is what I said:

"Brian, what fucking difference does it make man? I don't even know why you're talking about this. The Christian bible says to go out and preach the gospel and help people right? So if you want to be a Christian like you say you are, why don't you just do that and stop bullshitting about things you couldn't possibly know the real answer to. Predestination might be true, and it might not be true, and you won't know for sure until you're there to see for yourself. Are you trying to justify Christians just sitting back and doing nothing because 'it's all predestined anyhow, so you can't change anything?' We can both agree that's rediculous. There are things that just aren't worth talking about because true or not, our actions should remain the same. If Sarah's sister is depressed and hopeless, Sarah has both a duty and a desire to help her - predestined to fail or not. How about some encouragement or some helpful advice, instead of some BS doom and gloom attitude based on a rediculous presumption of predestination that can't help, but can only hurt the situation?"

The other night I ended up in a similar conversation about "global warming" and the "runaway greenhouse effect." Two friends of mine, one a physics major, and one a geologist were arguing about whether global warming or a run-away greenhouse effect were occuring, and indeed whether it was even possible. Both had compelling arguments. The physics major was citing a mathematical equation stating the earth did not have enough mass to support a run away greenhouse effect. The geologist cited the amount of carbon being released artificially (not though natural means) by mankind, along with other unnatural toxins, lumped on top of deforestation which is the Earth's built-in air filter, then talked about the Earth's weather cycles through history gathered from core samples taken from the north and south poles. Fascinated by this argument between two full-fledged geniuses, I sat for a while before I again interrupted with a similar speech.

We can argue forever about things like this, but ultimately they are beyond our current ability to fully understand, so nobody will be able to proove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their standpoint is the right one. Is global warming a threat we are creating, or is it the Earth's natural cycle? Can we, or are we, altering the climate, or are we doomed no matter what? Scientists can argue to the death, but nobody lived through the last million (or hundred thousand) years of the Earth's life, and the people doing the bickering won't be around to catch the very dire effects of global warming, or the climate cycle, if there will be any to be seen. And even if the earth floods completely and New York, now under ten feet of water, sees 120 degree summers, they will argue whether we caused it, or it is a naturally occuring phenomenon that we were powerless to prevent. How do we make decisions when faced with opposing viewpoints and an impossibility of prooving either one to be correct?

We should take prudence into consideration.

What harm does cutting our carbon emissions cause? None. The "financial ruin" story is a myth written by oil companies and American car manufacturers who are saying, "we like things just the way they are, thank you very much." I'm sure wagon salesmen and horse farmers got pretty pissed off when Henry Ford rolled out his model T, but with every new technology comes the emergence of a new industry. Instead of corporations forcing things to remain the same, they have to be foreward thinking and innovative, or risk loosing everything to those that are.

On the flip side of cutting emissions is doing absolutely nothing. What possible harm could this cause? According to many scientists, this could be a severe change in life as we know it: hotter summers, colder winters, hurricanes more powerful than we have ever seen, lakes and rivers drying up, New York City under water.

When faced with two un-provable options we must employ the long forgotten tactic of erring on the side of caution. Just as in the conversation about pre-destination, the conversation on climate change won't be put to rest until we wait it out and see what happens. And even then, it may continue. But the conversation itself can be dangerous if one side proposes taking a certain action (in this case, the "action" is inaction), solely based on their own opinion, that could possibly give rise to a disastrous outcome, whereas the alternative poses fewer, if any, risks at all. Those arguing against global warming may have good points scientifically, but what are they really insisting we do? Are they honestly arguing that we should do nothing to cut our emissions of carbon and other harmful chemicals into the atmosphere? Are they really saying that it is okay for us to continue to pollute and destroy with the same magnitude? Was Bryan insisting that Christians should give up ministering and helping other people, just because God had predestined them to "go to hell"? I'm no biblical scholar, but I think that most Christians would be offended by that idea. So why have the conversation at all? Why not just say, "I don't know whether this is true or not, so I am going to make the best choice possible and do what feels right." Helping people in need feels right. Reducing the amount of pollution in the air, soil, and water of the earth in which we all must live, and cutting back our consumption of natural resources that are in limited supply just feels like the right thing to do.

Let's continue the debate, while making the right choice right now. There is too much hanging in the balance. Enough of the partisan rhetoric. Enough with the statistics and one-sided, incongruous scientific data. How about putting some good 'ol logic on the table, and considering that for a change?

it's a bit confusing, so give me time.

2006-10-30T10:39:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I have no idea how to work this blogspot thing. HTML and all of this mumbo jumbo are completely foreign to me. I need to upgrade my .mac membership to a full one (right now it is just an email address under my wife's full membership) so that I can use my .mac account to set up a blog, because this thing really, really confuses me. My mac is so easy and making a web site is so simple. I sound like I work for them but I really don't. I just like my computer. I like clicking and dragging things, not typing incoherant chains of letters and punctuation marks.

So it seems that people have been leaving comments for quite some time and I didn't know it. Then I inadvertently deleted a lot of them by clicking them all and then hitting the wrong button. I'm sorry. Next time I'll do better.

Now I'm going to get on my knees and pray to the god of the internet to forgive me my sins and please let don't let everybody hate me. Actually, let everybody hate me. Life is more interesting that way.

W.W.J.K.

2006-10-23T09:13:00.000-04:00

Nearly every day something happens that makes me want to further distance myself from other people who call themselves "Christians". People who profit greatly off of a "religion" have always confused me, and nobody knows how to pull a profit from their religion like the Christians do. But Christian justification of violence has been kept on the down-low since the Inquisitions and the Crusades came to a close. Violence committed openly in the name of the Christian God has thus far been dubbed unacceptable fanaticism (Waco, Texas, for example). Although lot of "God-fearing" Americans definitely have a "my God is better than your God" attitude, which is why things like the war in Iraq are easily justified. Many Christian Americans sub-consciously view these people as heathens. But still, nobody openly discusses war or violence based solely on Christian religious ideals because people aren't yet willing to talk about the possibility that Americans may fight over religion just the same as people in Africa and the middle east.

But those days may be coming to a close and giving birth to an age where Christian Americans proudly wave the banner of their faith, let out a battle cry, and become willing to take up arms for their God. Because soon, the profiteering buffoon Tim LaHaye of "Left Behind Series" fame, will be releasing a Christian warfare video game called "LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces."

I have read several of LaHaye's books, and let's just say there isn't much to talk about. The writing is ameteur at best, and the weak story line goes on and on and on to no end. But the bad story sold to millions of gullible Christians foaming at the mouth for Jesus is beside the point.

The game is essentially a "Christian" take on all the other strategic fighting games that are so popular. It is brought to us by video game producer Troy Lyndon, of Madden Football fame, and in interviews with the creators, nothing is discussed more than the hope that the game will appeal to users on a massive scale, and generate huge profits. It is modeled after similar violent strategic fighting games, only this time, users will be fighting for something greater than just the satisfaction of winning. They will be killing for the Lord.

In the game, you are in command of a force of Christian warriors roaming the streets of New York after the rapture leaves the world in a chaotic state. The web site for the game boasts that you are able to use modern-day warfare technologies to carry out battles on the streets of New York City.

You are the Christian warrior. Who are the enemies? Well... I have read several of the Left Behind books (never got through all five-hundred of them because I got bored out of my mind after number five or six). The "enemy" is anybody who isn't a Born-Again Christian. Kill the Jews, Catholics, Athiests, Moslems, and those pesky peace-loving one-world-government-sanctioning Buddhists, and even the terrible pagan punk-rockers.

I don't need to write much about the game, because the implications behind it speak for themselves. But let me just say that we cannot take things like this lightly. Is isn't just a game. It sanctions and promotes a very dangerous Christian jihadist mentality. Yes... I meant to say jihadist. It rationalizes killing in the name of Jesus Christ. It's bad enough that people are using the name of the man who said "It is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven" to make millions upon millions of dollars, but now they are using his name to justify killing. What happened to "If a man strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other one"? I guess that passage, along with many others, is missing from LaHaye's bible. Being that so many Christians already see things like the war in Iraq as a bit of a holy war (we're the good guys, they're the bad guys, "God Bless America," and "Pray For Our Troops") this game is another blow to the foundations of the Christian faith.

I smell a Christ-centered school shooting in the air!

Who Would Jesus Kill?

information. what a revolution it is.

2006-10-05T15:59:00.000-04:00

Last night I sat in on a revolution and those taking part were unaware of their involvement in something so subversive. It took place in Dix Hills at what I guess you would call a "birthing class" which is where you pay someone to teach you all about babies and giving birth. Technically, I believe it is called a "Bradley Method Class". I don't know what, exactly, the "Bradley Method" is, but it seems nice.

The teacher was talking about epidurals and their associated risks and benefits. She is very balanced in all of her information, and her goal is to give people the knowledge they need to have their birth the way they want it to be, regardless of what that is. She gives a very fair view of everything so that people can make informed decisions about the health of their family. In this age where simply degrading the opposition has become the basis of our political and social decisions, balanced information has definitely become a rarity on all battle fronts.

Basically, the weigh-in on epidurals is this: the benefits are that it takes away the pain, which can be quite considerable when pushing a large object out of the body. Also, if a c-section is necessary, using an epidural means the woman is awake during surgery, and completely aware of her surroundings, which is a very good thing. On the "risk" side, is the fact that it can cause cardiac arrest, in the mother or the baby that is still inside her, severe allergic reaction (again, in mother or child), inability to push (which means you will then need a surgical delivery which carries its own set of increased risks), "fetal distress" (also meaning a definite c-section), possible paralysis (temporary or life-long), headaches that last days or weeks after delivery (not much fun with a new born baby in the house), and the list goes on. Plus, nobody knows the long-term effects of the small amount of the drug coctail that reaches the baby.

The possible inability to push, and the definite inability to move around to aid in delivery are both proven to greatly increase the risk of c-section in mothers receiving epidurals. It isn't only the pain-killer's fault. After an epidural, the mother must be strapped to a fetal monitor (proven to increase c-section rates), receive an IV of fluids, and possibly receive a catheter to drain urine, because feeling the need to pee is impossible with a numbed bladder. Also, headaches lasting several days or weeks after birth, and fetal distress (which is why the constant monitoring is now necessary) leading to c-section delivery are all very common after receiving an epidural. However, the other much more serious side effects are obviously extremely rare.

In the case of a surgical delivery, an epidural or some numbing agent has to be used. The body was not built to feel itself being cut open. But in a normal delivery, the epidural has no physical medical need. It solves no actual physical threat to the body, rather it solves a mental one. Pain of any kind is hard for the mind to overcome, but it is simply that - a mental hurdle. Pain alone cannot kill you. An epidural, no matter how rare an occurence it may be, can. Giving it arbitrarily to millions of mothers leads to cesarean rates as high as 40% of births in many hospitals, and is an unnecessary added risk factor in many births.

Confronted with that information, and the time to "think it through", I would bet my life things would be different. The fact is that pain from birth will not kill you. It is not physically dangerous. Simply put, it is nerves firing off signals to the brain that to say that "this hurts - a lot." Most women are not adequately prepared for the pain, nor are they encouraged and coached through it in order to avoid a possibly dangerous medical procedure. Instead, in the midst of terrible pain, the doctor offers them an immediate way out and rambles off the possible "side effects" and information about a highly increased risk of c-section is always left out (because it is just heresay, despite the overwhelming amount of research supporting the view). It's the same reason why torture yields mounds of information that is almost always wrong. People experiencing intense pain cannot be expected to make rational decisions.

Sitting there last night, I realized that these un-suspecting people (NYC cops, accountants, lawyers, Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, and progressives alike) were taking part in a revolution. By giving us the information we need to make informed decisions, the teacher was taking power over our lives away from the drug companies and placing it back where it belongs. This is a power they have arduously worked and schemed to achieve for many generations. And with a little un-biased information, we could very well destroy them.

The revolution is beginning.

want the real news? check page A30.

2006-09-27T16:38:00.000-04:00

Today, as usual, the most important news pieces, and the ones that should be given a great deal of attention for the next several weeks (or months, or years) can be found on pages A30 and A46 in Newsday. Not sure about the New York Times. They don't carry it at the Dominican deli acorss the street.

The first is entitled, "North Korea Rejects Nuclear Talks". If there is a forceful international (not economic) threat facing our nation, North Korea must be in the top five, if not number one. Forget Iraq. North Korea not only actually (not fictionally, as was the case with Iraq), but actually has WMDs. And they have the gall to use them. According to the article, North Korea says the United States wants to rule the world. I won't take sides, but I must agree with their opinion that we have an unspoken desire for at least below-the-surface world domination. If the American media would report on such important things a little more often, maybe we could all formulate a better opinion as to how important these talks are to our future.

The Second is: "U.S. Falls In Global Competitiveness Ranking". Apparently, we don't want anybody to realize that we are, in fact, becoming less educated, less innovative, and as a nation we are rapidly embracing an attitude of not worrying about the future. Either that, or the media knows Americans don't care, and won't believe it anyway (we'll just think that the people who said we aren't competitive don't know what they're talking about). So they put the cover-story worthy information, downgraded to nothing more than a blurb, on page A46.

My step-father hit the nail on the head when he called the United States, in its present form, "a lumbering giant". Who is number one in the World Economic Forum's 2006 global competitiveness ranking? Switzerland. Followed by Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Singapore. In 2005, the United States was on top. One year later, and we're dropped to number six.

The WEF decided that our huge spending on the war and "homeland secutiry" added to the GOP's plans for continued tax cuts, mounted on top of the rising and long-term economic strain of sky-rocketing health care costs and pensions that will ultimately be covered by tax payers is... well... driving our future economy into a gigantic Texas-shaped tar-pit. I'm sure that our increasing dependance on decreasing oil supplies didn't help us either.

They didn't need a whole forum to decide that one. They could have just sent one guy (or girl!) to Long Island and asked me, and I could have told them. But they love to have their meetings and their pitchers of water in from of them while they discuss things like this. So we let them.

It's amazing what a great education you can get just by listening, reading, and having some logic in your brain.

"I must _____ or the terrorists will win!" steadfastness, or stupidity?

2006-09-22T15:08:00.000-04:00

According to television, they seem to have become popular slogans and signs of nationalistic pride. "We can't change our way of life or our tactics, because if we do, the terrorists will win!" Or my favorite: "I'm not gonna let gas prices alter my way of life." I guess if you do, the terrorists somehow win. Are these signs of strength, or are they signs of ignorance?

Simple one first: "I'm not gonna let gas prices alter my way of life." I started with this one because you can easily throw it into the dumb-as-a-bag-of-bricks pile. That's like saying, "I'm not gonna let the price of Broadway shows stop me from going as much as I want!" (Do the terrorists win there too?) Broadway seats are about $90 a pop, and if you're working 9 -5 like most of us, looking for deals on chicken breasts at the supermarket, it's probably not the smartest thing to do to take your family out to the theatre every two weeks. Everyone would agree. But somehow wasteing money in our gas-guzzling, school bus sized SUVs has become a sign of National pride and resiliency (if we give them up, the terrorists will surely win!). If you stand on the outside and look in at it, it's more like complete senselessness than anything else.

If you wanted to look at it in a "War on Terror" sense, the very people our President is labelling as terrorists, like Hugo Chavez (who is practically giving away fuel-oil to poor American families, which is another issue all together), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (President of Iran), and even Osama Bin Laden, are all oil profiteers. So if you REALLY want to beat the terrorists, ride a bike!

But this isn't an accident. Logically, telling Americans we can undermine governments and terrorists in the middle east more effectively by conserving fuel than by blowing up bombs would mean no more campaign contributions to the GOP from Big Oil. They're the Grand Oil Party. It follows. They have effectively used the media as a way of indirectly convincing the American public that owning a huge car and consuming oil regardless of price are signs of strength and resolution. And their rhetoric gives the impression that we are moving steadily into an age of oil independence. The President talks about "alternative energy sources" like corn and grass clippings. This gives people the impression that everything is fine, that one day we will all be flying around in cars fueled by our pulled weeds. So people simply wait to be ushered into that period. It is whitewash, and nothing more.

What the President fails to mention is that we already have the technologies to be completely independant from outside energy sources. Most of these technologies have already been implimented into many other countries as far back as the 80's. Switzerland has pledged to be completely oil free by 2020. We aren't Switzerland, but if the technology exists for them it exists for us. We have American auto manufacturers suing the state of California for mandating that all cars within the state meet China's emissions standards in ten years. China's emissions standards are one of the lowest in the industrialized world. That doesn't sound like progress to me. Sounds more like stupidity.

"I must _____ or the terrorists will win!" steadfastness, or just stupidity?

2006-09-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

This is the next, and equally lame slogan: "We must not give in and change our way of life. If we do, the terrorists will have won!" When I say that this idea is wrong I don't mean that we should all avoid New York City and live in the woods. I am speaking on a much larger, and more important scale.

These people don't hate us because they are "haters of freedom". That idea is the most insane thing I think I have ever heard. They aren't just killing "infidels" simply because they are "evildooers". If they were just crazy and wanted to kill people, they wouldn't have to plan and sceme and travel acoss continents to do it. They could just stone some adulterers and hang some guys who didn't show up at grandma's house for Ramadan and be done with it. They are killing for revenge.

They hate us because years of US Foreign Policies have plunged their nations into poverty and near constant civil war. We have backed regime change after regime change in the middle east to suit our immediate needs, including backing both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The U.S.-led, UN sanctioned blockade of Iraq led to the deaths of over one million children, and since our invasion of Iraq (which we now know was based on falsehoods and deception), we have killed over 35,000 Iraqi civilians. This has led to an increase in terrorist activities world-wide. And it's no wonder why. Imagine that after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Feberal Building in Oklahoma City the US army started blowing up houses and shooting at people, taking 5,000 innocent lives before they found him? How much faith would you have in your government? Now imagine that it was another nation's government coming in doing the killing and telling you that it's for your own good? I would venture to say that some of us might start blowing things up ourselves.

As Mahatma Ghandi said (and as I have already previously quoted), "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

This calls for a new solution. Violence as a reaction to violence has shown us that it simply leads to more violence when it is on such a large scale. After all, we have to remember this isn't us against Germany or Japan. It is us against... umm... oh yeah, we don't know who our enemy is! Bombing a nation of 26 million people to flush out out what was probably several thousand (if even that many) will unavoidably lead to thousands of innocent lives lost for each guilty one taken. Whatever beautiful image of a free and democratic nation the invader may be preaching, when all you want is the lives of your family back, freedom and democracy mean nothing.

My solution? Give them a drink of water. Being alive is more important than being "free", which is a relative term to begin with.

In the 90's, FBI agents gained valuable information from suspects in the first World Trade Center bombing by attempting to turn them against one another using a strange tactic: kindness. They hired interrogators and guards who had extensive knowledge of the Koran, allowed the detainees unlimited access to books and videos, and even gave an expensive surgery to an especially stand-off-ish al Qaeda member's sick child. Allthough it took a while for the effects of this to be seen, the results were reliable information that led to the capture of many people connected with that attack. Presently, torturing our detainees has only led to countless false claims of pending attacks against malls, schools, apartment buildings and nuclear plants, and the arrest and torture of thousands of innocent people named to stop the pain. Think back to spring and summer of 2002 and you will undoubtedly remember the barrage of information on possible terrorist targets within the US. Obviously these weren't a sign of successful interrogation, because no attacks actually occurred. On the contrary, they were based on the words of individuals being tortured into saying something, anything. It is reminiscent of Salem residents tracking down witches.

Our bullying of the entire middle east has led to increased terrorist activities worldwide and has undoubtedly sealed our fate to receive another one in due time. We have done nothing to ease the resentment felt towards us (indeed, we have worsened it), and our government has done nothing to increase our safety at home. Five years later New York City and Long Island still have not even an emergency evacuation plan on the table. Our preparedness and our prevention are both pitiful and disgusting.

So now imagine that the United States, instead of running around killing millions of people over the last twenty years in the name of freedom, had instead used our vast wealth to feed and give healthcare to anybody needing it, regardless of who their leaders were or was living among them? This would have taken real guts and genuine heroism. We would have had to be resolute and have the faith and courage to not seek retribution against many because of the actions of a few living among them.

If we had started doing this twenty years ago I would wager that animosity towards the United States would be on a considerably smaller scale than it was in 2001, and espeically smaller than it is at present. If anybody still generated enough hatred to come all the way to New York City to blow themselves up, exposing those involved in planning those attacks would be much easier with the general population of those countries on your side. There would have been millions of people saying, "The Americans are the reason my family is alive, so I am on their side." Right now, in many Iraqi households it is, "Americans are the reason my family is dead. They are the enemy." Iran is next.

Unfortunately, none of our fear is by accident. Though our leaders have told us that we must not be affraid and to go about our lives as normal, they have consistently and (I believe) strategically spread out the "reports of terrorist activity" just enough to keep us affraid, but not enough to make us think they aren't doing their job. Fear is the most powerful motivator of people in the political carnival, and politicians know that using people's fear as a political weapon is very successful, and a wartime president is the most difficult one to unseat.

In addition, I think that the present administration is shrewdly aware that many Americans have become more like gorillas than rational human beings. We don't care about results. We don't have the attention span to wait for results. What we want is retribution, which is immediate. We want to see bombs going off on TV and we take comfort in the fact that the guilty are being tortured. The fact that these tactics have led us further from safety is inconsequential to us. Swift retribution gives us the temporary feeling of satisfaction that keeps our heads comfortably nestled in the clouds. But if left un-checked, our habit of evading long-term visions will continually lead to short term solutions, and as history has shown us, these will lead to our downfall.

words worth remembering

2006-09-18T14:22:00.000-04:00

"The greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
- George Washington

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man that reads nothing but newspapers"

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive."

"I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

-All of the above are from Thomas Jefferson (So many that I love)

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
- Mahatma Gandhi

"Would those of you in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."
- John Lennon

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one."
- Alexander Hamilton

will we let the Brit's out-do us?

2006-09-11T12:46:00.000-04:00

So... Tony Blair will be resigning as Prime Minister because of pressue put on him over his involvement in the War in Iraq.

What more will it take for us to wake up and realize that it is our duty as American citizens to do the same to George W. Bush and all those involved in the failed war in Iraq?

The American public was told that we needed to invade Iraq immediately or we may see mushroom clouds over New York City. That is what George Bush told us on television. Turns out, the information that he was using to justify war via an "imminent threat" in 2001 was collected back in 1996. If it was such a dire threat, how come we waited five years before taking action? It's a wonder any of us are still alive (sarcasm strongly intended). The information came from a former Iraqi cab driver known only as "Curveball" who was only interrogated by one American intelligency agent, who said that he seriously doubted the veracity of Curveball's tails.

Turns out Curveball was just some guy from Iraq who had been living in Germany for several years and his visa was up. So he went to the German authorities and told them he had information regarding an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. German intelligence interviewed him and sent the information to American intelligence agencies with a caution that they firmy believed his assertions to be false. They stated that he was drunk when they interviewed him, and kept asking about the possiblity of being given a defector visa, which would allow him to stay in Germany indefinitely, and would mean he would be given an apartment and an allowance by the German government. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what the guy was trying to do. Hey... throw them something they might want to hear, and get a free apartment and a salary for doing nothing! Where do I sign up for that one?

Then, five years later, George Bush uses Curveball's shoddy assertions to make a statement that "we have receieved information that Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program" and "the warning sign may be a mushroom cloud over New York City."

We HAD to get them before they got us.

So, we invade Iraq only to find that they had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Every American now knows, or should know, that the information used to make the attack was outdated, and called into serious question by our own CIA. It is now also common knowledge (to anybody that cares to do a little research) that all this was known by the administration before they made the battly cry.

2,000+ American soldiers are dead. Between 35,000 and 60,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Why did they bring us into this pointless war? There are many speculations, from profiteering politically-connected corporations to a political move by the President to secure himself the office for a second term. Right now, none of that matters all that much to me. What I know is that we were not in danger of being attacked by Iraq, and we did not need to invade. 2,000+ Americans did not need to die. Who will be held accountable?

The British know what to do. Their leader had to be held accountable for his actions. Just like President Bush, Tony Blair had led the British, who (also like us) were divided 50/50 on the issue, into battle in Iraq. At the very least, Tony Blair could not be trusted to lead their nation any longer. Will Americans have the will-power to hold their leaders accountable for what they have done? What is it about our current culture that has made it a no-no to consider holding our leaders to the same standard we would expect from our own friends and family? Unfortunately, unlike when you or I make a decision for the wrong reasons, their bad judgement leads to tens of thousands of lives lost. Yet still we allow them to continue unquestioned. We even support them. It is incredibly saddening.

Don't let the British be proof that we have lost our senses and our American spirit. Write a letter to your representatives in Congress and the Senate calling for the impeachment of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and all others who had an involvement in bringing us into a war that will never end. Remember: This was was un-necessary. 2,000+ American soldiers have given their lives.

competition isn't much fun.

2006-09-05T14:33:00.000-04:00

Americans sing the praise of capitalism, but I don't think any of them really know what they believe in. Such is the case when it comes to many other issues, and with regards to capitalism and competition, a lot of us just don't get it.

It hit me the other day as I was watching a preview for the TV show "30 Days". The episode is one in which a man who lost his tech support job to people in India is made to travel to India and live with those very people for 30 days. I haven't seen the episode, but it made me realize that most Americans aren't truly capitalist. Let's examine:

Right now one of the many heated debates among the American public is the issue of immigration, particularly from Mexico and South America. American citizens bemoan the loss of wages to immigrants. But I would offer this viewpoint. Let's say I own a company that makes televisions. Our televisions are great, and for 35 years my television company is number one. Then, lo and behold, somebody else figures out how to make the same exact TVs, or maybe even better TVs, and sell them at a fraction of the cost. Within a week, my business is gone. If I don't learn to adapt, I will fail. Americans have a rabid desire for cheap stuff, and that desire is the driving force in all of this. The fact of the matter is, if someone is willing to do the same job (or a better job) than you for less money, they will take your job from you. THAT is the gruesome side of capitalism that most of us don't like to face.

Now let's examine another anti-capitalist idea alive and well within the United States: Labor Unions. There is nothing more anti-capitalist than a labor union. Every socialist thinker everywhere has sung praises to the Union, and almost every right wing republican is a member of one. Imagine that? What unions accomplish is the removal of competition from the workforce. Job security is not a capitalist idea. It is a socialist one. Capitalism says, "work hard, work smart, and work cheap, and hopefully you will eventually make a lot of money. But maybe not." Socialism says, "work hard at the work you are given, and you will always make enough to live on. Never more and never less."

For some reason, members of the workforce think their jobs are above being susceptible to the competition of capitalism. They allow it and encourage it among corporations, but when it comes to their jobs, the rules are re-written. I find it very confusing.

In closing, I am not a capitalist or a socialist. Truthfully, I'm not sure where I stand on all of this. Both sides are filled with poisons that my mind can't sort through at this point. Labor unions drive up prices and create the need for an illegal immigrant workforce and off-shoring. Unions also cause inflation. But without them, bosses may always abuse their workers to sap as much productivity as possible out of them with no regards to their workers health, safety, or happiness. I can only hope that we will somehow work through these issues. The answer is definitely a middle ground scenario, but what aspects of capitalism and socialism must be combined to create a nation that will actually function properly, I don't think I know.

the road to political success really IS paved with gold!

2006-08-29T13:56:00.000-04:00

The following information can be obtained by typing the name "Joe Allbaugh" into the search engine and information database Wikipedia.com.

Many people don't know who Joe Allbaugh is, so here is some background (without having to read five pages in Wikipedia):

Allbaugh served as George Bush's campaign manager when GW was running for Governor in Texas in 1994, and was again Campaign Manager for Bush's first Presidential run in 2000. After the George Bush became President, he got rid of James-Lee Witt and appointed Allbaugh as Director of FEMA. Allbaugh was director of FEMA for about 2 years, then he resigned on March 1st 2003. He was replaced by his college roomate Michael D. Brown, of "heck-of-a-job-Brownie" fame. It's a gigantic revolving door over there.

This is the incredible part. After his resignation, Allbaugh went to work for two companies: New Bridge Strategies, and Diligence Iraq. New Bridge Strategies is a consulting firm that helps clients "evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the US-led war in Iraq" (Edsall, Thomas B. and Juliet Eilperin. "Lobbyists Set Sights On Money-Making Opportunities in Iraq". Washington Post, October 2, 2003, p. A21). Diligence Iraq is a security company that protects civilians working in Iraq. Big money on both parts.

He also opened his own firm, called the Allbaugh Company. They are essentially a lobbyist group that specializes in winning government contracts for their powerful clientelle.

After hurricane Katrina, Allbaugh was one of the first on the scene. It was his influence that enabled the Shaw Group to win a $100 millon contract to help rebuild and provide emergency housing. Though Allbaugh claims his company does no direct political lobbying, it's hard to imagine that he didn't make a call to his college buddy Michael Brown to secure the $100 million contract for Shaw. He also won Iraq contracts for Halliburton worth over $9 billion (that number is from 2005).

Allbaugh's story can be seen over and over again within not only this administration, but many others before it as well, and it is exactly what is wrong with this country. Even as an appointed political employee, in charge of a huge organization whose job it is to help people after a disaster, he obviously cares nothing for serving the public. With no disaster relief or preparedness experience he was appointed head of FEMA by George Bush where he raked in a little less than $200,000 a year as FEMA director (that's comfortable), then made enough political connections to open up his own firm to do the same thing he had been doing as a government employee, only making more money. We see this scenario time and time again and it is rotting our system. Croneyism is a way of life for every administration, but this administration has taken it to a new level. It is more than hiring people you know and trust, it is hiring people because they can give you something in return. It's a gigantic circle of wealthy men scratching each other's backs. Proof of this can be seen in the fact that there have been more political turnovers between 2001 and 2007 than we have ever seen before as a Nation.

The government is chock full of rich people trying to get richer off the infinite amount of money available through government contracts. Allbaugh's connection to the Shaw group, Halliburton and others is more than disturbing. War and disaster are huge money makers, and these people have neither the consciences nor the restraint to keep from taking advantage of other people's suffering.

INTRODUCTION: a red ringing victory (hidden by stupidity)

2006-08-29T13:44:00.000-04:00

BEFORE I BEGIN THE NEXT POST: I mean no disrespect by alluding to Sept. 11th or hurricane Katrina and using the words "mildly catastrophic" to decribe those events. To the many who lost relatives on 9/11, I literally ache for you, and I ache for my City of New York as a whole. I also feel very strongly for the people of New Orleans. My wife is from Baton Rouge, and I have many beautiful memories of the time we spent in New Orleans together, including the night we were engaged. Both New York and New Orleans are very close to my heart. It is unfortunate that our Federal Government gives little concern for every day people - the group overwhelmingly affected by these events. The reason I will use the words "mildly catastrophic" to describe the events is because, although these disasters were horrible for the many people affected by them, they pale in comparison with many other events around the world. September 11th is nothing compared to the thousands of people who die daily around the world, and particularly in the Middle East because of War and Terrorism and Terrorism by War. Hurricane Katrina, while completely devastating for so many people and families, could definitely be called "mild" in comparison to the widespread destruction from the Tsunamis that hit India, Thailand, and Indonesia, among others, in 2004. So please know I would never downgrade anybody's suffering, but an event as a whole can be guaged on how many people are affected, and when thought of in that sense, the events in the US these past five years have been miniscule. Anyhow, this has nothing to do with what this is about, but I thought it was important to get out of the way.

a red-ringing victory (hidden by stupidity)

2006-08-29T12:08:00.000-04:00

Now the beginning:

One year ago this week the Bush administration again proved completely unprepared for any kind of disaster, natural or otherwise, within the United States. They again proved themselves incapable or preventing or responding to even mildly catastrophic events. And once again, it has worked in their favor.

Let's recap: George Bush is appointed President by the Supreme Court in 2001 following a very uncertain election. The Nation is divided. Bush makes a few ripples with his "pro-life" jargon, but other than that, the waters are fairly quiet. By the looks of things during the first few months, he will float through four years and disappear into the sunset.

Then, following countless warnings from the CIA, FBI, and International Intelligence agencies (to which Bush literally replied that he was "sick of hearing it"), the attacks of September 11th 2001 take place. Any other President would have been chased to the city walls by a mob of pissed off New Yorkers. But not George Bush and Co. Somehow they took the focus off their mistakes and ignorance before 9/11 by employing the powerful methods of scape-goating, finger pointing, and above all, distraction. Their campaign was so successful, they managed to rally American support for a "War on Terror" that took us into a nation that was not presently, and was not planning on engaging in any terrorist activity. 500 billion dollars, 2,000+ American and 60,000+ civilian lives later and many Americans are still strongly supportive. Their finagling was a success.

We all know how things went from then. So we pick up in 2004, when George Bush rallies unbelievable support using fear tactics as a campaign strategy: "A vote for Kerry is a vote for the terrorists", anthrax attacks, soldiers on the streets of New York City, talk of mushroom clouds over Manhattan Island, reports of possible attacks on small US cities, water contamination, smallpox, and the list goes on. He is elected President in what will most likely become the second most hotly contested Presidential race in American history (the other being his former 2001 appointment to office).

Then, in 2005, it happened again.

Under the Clinton Administration, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) flourished. For the first time, a man who had actual emergency management experience, James-Lee Witt, was appointed Director of FEMA. Witt realized not only the need to be able to respond quickly to an event, but the immense importance of preparedness. He realized that one of the best things America could do to respond to a catastrophe is to forsee disasters before they strike, and prepare for them. Very clearly he saw that for every dollar the American government spent on preparation, they would save five dollars in the long run. Witt set about gauging the likelyhood of a range of occurrences from an earth quake in San Francisco, to floods in New Orleans, and a terrorist attack in New York City, and he began setting the wheels in motion to prepare for disaster before it struck.

Unfortunately, Witt's days were numbered. George Bush, who seems to give little value to thinking about the future, replaced him with a less qualified Michael D. Brown, whose official title was "Undersecretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response", and the administration immediately began breaking up Clinton's FEMA and bringing it back to its former glory: a parking lot for political apointees. Obviously, Witt's preparedness program was brought to an immediate halt as FEMA turned into an unorganized, underfunded, bureaucratic mess.

What Bush wasn't counting on, just as in August 2001, was that something might actually happen. Katrina hit New Orleans, and the city and the Federal Government were completely unprepared. No emergency transportation plan existed, no money was available, and there wasn't even a system of communication or a simple process in place for getting things done. Nobody knew who was in charge, what was going on, who to call, and whose job it was to do what and when. A good example: a request Michael Brown made for 500 busses to evactuate people from New Orleans following the storm "fell into a black hole" (Brown's own words).

For almost a week the citizens of New Orleans fried, starved, died of disease, or died of thirst, while the President continued about his way. His big "heroic" moment was flying over New Orleans in Air Force One. Thanks for the visit, George.

Now here is the catch. This time Bush had really screwed it up, and the flaws within his system were very apparent to everyone. Fox News could run all the degrading reports of looting and riots they could muster, but the bottom line was that Americans saw other Americans abandoned by their government. The result of it all was that the people of New Orleans would NEVER vote for any Republican ever again. In fact, even before the fumbled response to hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was one of the deep blue spots within in the red state of Louisiana. Furthermore, the political aftermath of Katrina has most likely spread throughout the state, with many Louisiana residents who were on the fence during the '04 elections now thinking heavily towards a Democratic vote in '08. So if the former residents of New Orleans are to move back into their city, Louisiana may very well become the next Ohio. Here is the solution for the Republicans: continue to make the response seem strong on television so the rest of the nation thinks the government is doing a great job down there, do lots of photo-ops (real or fake), and make lots of emotional speaches... but continue to do little to nothing in actuality.

What will this do? It will force the citizens of New Orleans, who cannot wait years for the paperwork to trickle down through the administration's incompetent system, to set up a new life somewhere else... Sell their property for a fraction of its original value and run. I am confident that once a large number of poor New Orleans residents have been forced to sell their property for a fraction of its original cost to real-estate giants, the levees will be promptly repaired, and construction on new up-scale housing, casinos, and hotels will commence. The former residents will most likely become residents in States already strongly held by either the Republican or Democratic party (Texas is a big one), essentially eliminating their votes all together (see the article I wrote called "Hopelessness Begins at Home" for a description of why their votes will no longer count). This, at least, is a fact: the Republican Party's main opposition in Louisiana will no longer exist. It may sound like a far-fetched conspiracy theory that they would allow thousands of people to suffer for the advancement of their political party, but when I consider that they have killed over 70,000 civilians and 2,000 soldiers in a war without a cause, it no longer seems far-fetched to me.

The conclusion is that following another debacle the Bush administration has pulled through. This time, much like the last time, it was accomplished by media manipulation (the citizens in New Orleans are violent criminals shooting at their rescuers!), emotionally moving speeches, and by dispersing those affected to avoid having to face their votes in the next election.

freedom is absent today - parte una

2006-07-26T13:44:00.000-04:00

Nobody wants to admit that we aren't free. But I'll say it: We aren't free. Nobody is. Some people are to a greater extent than others, but there are different grades of freedom. They all come at a cost.

While we were en-route to our ultimate free market economy we became trapped in a cell in which I believe we still reside. About a week ago I got a notice from my insurance company (Oxford) saying that they would no longer cover me. I am insured under a New York State law that created an insurance option called "Healthy New York". It gives lower cost insurance to people who are employed (and therefore do not qualify for other government aid or medicare), but don't make enough money to afford the $500+ a month price tag of run-of-the-mill medical coverage. Insurance companies are forced by the government to give me medical insurance at a lower rate (I don't say "low rate" on purpose, because even the price they give me is still way too much). They don't like this. Apparently their inability to charge me an exhorbitant sum to cover my near non-existant medical costs makes them mad. So they screw with my insurance coverage any chance they get. They drop my coverage without telling me, send the bills to random addresses, and mail me paperwork a week before the deadline to submit it.

We need to realize that not everything is better off in the hands of private, money-making individuals. Such is the case with health insurance. Insurance companies now own our hospitals and our doctors. Those doctors that don't accept insurance are forced to charge so much that only the elite can afford to see them.

My wife cut her finger about a month ago. It was an inconvenient circumstance because we were expecting about 30 people at our house for a barbeque and they were to begin arriving in about twenty minutes, but I felt it prudent to see a doctor - just to assure us things were okay, or to stitch it up if necessary. I, however, need to remember a little more often how backwards things are with the American healthcare system, and that no emergency room doctor is going to send us on our way with a bit of good advice. So here is the run-down, followed by the climax.

Emily cuts her finger and says "it's fine."

I, in a moment of complete mental paralysis regarding my knowledge of the "emergency room", and forgetting we live in a neighborhood with probably 30 doctors and plastic surgeons, say, "I think we should go to the emergency room and have them take a look at it."

Finger wrapped in a paper towel and off we go.

The one highlight of our time at the hospital begins (and ends) here, with the security-guard standing outside the door. I pulled right up to the door and he walked towards us. I was readying myself for battle with him as I was sure he was going to tell me I had to move - and I was about to say, "my wife's finger is cut and I need to walk her in" when he said, very calmly, "what's the problem?"

I told him that my wie cut her finger. He replied, "okay. I'll walk her inside and show her where to go. You can park right up that hill and to the left." He took her purse, and walkd her in. He made me feel calm and comfortable, and I thanked him afterwards.

But then the circus arrived in all their ridiculousness. I'll give the shortest version possible:

Emily gave far too much information to a woman behind a glass window. Then we sat for two hours in a freezing cold waiting room that smelled like rat poison.

When she was finally called in, they sat her on a table in a room, and pulled a curtain in front of her that was so close to her it touched her knees. She was wearing a small black dress you would wear only to the pool or a barbeque and it was freezing, but they offered her no blanket. So I found her one.

After another 45 minutes or so, the doctor arrived and looked at her finger. Then she left and I think she went out to dinner because she didn't come back for at least a half-hour. She said she was looking for whatever it was she needed to fix Emily's finger. Then she used a very unique method to clean the wound: she ran it under cold water. Oh, by the way, the room was a mess. There were medical supplies all over the floor and the cabinets were a mess. I believe a medical student came in at one point and picked up a package of gauze off the floor and brought it into the room next door.

So then the doctor, who was completely and utterly confused as to what to do with Emily's finger, asked the medical student what he thought she should do. This was not a teaching moment, mind you. She was really asking him because she didn't know. He was sitting at a computer looking at an ebay auction, and he kept saying in a dry tone, "there's lots of kids out there. Maybe we should bring some of them in." She ignored him. After ignoring him twice, she announced she needed something else, and left for another twenty minutes. Almost the whole time she was standing by the admissions counter blabbering with some interns. I don't think she thought I could see her standing there. She returned with nothing she hadn't left with.

Finally, with much bumbling, and with what seemed to me to be the medical knowledge and understanding of a high-school freshman, she put glue all over my Emily's finger, wrapped it in fifteen feet of gauze, and we left.

Now here is the climax: we recieved a "bill" in the mail yesterday amounting to just under $1,200.00 for our visit to the "emergency room". We only have to pay $50 of it, but that doesn't stop me from complaining, because ultimately, you and I are both paying this bill.

First of all, thank God this wasn't a real emergency, or Emily would have been in trouble. But this brings to light the tip of the iceberg that is the failing American healthcare system.

...continued in parte due..

freedom is absent today - parte due

2006-07-26T13:41:00.000-04:00

Our healthcare system is being plauged by a conflict of interest. More and more our hospitals are being bought up by the insrance companies that pay the bills. The system works well for the hospitals, and the insurance companies alike.

It works for the hospitals because the quality of their care and the knowledge of their staff doesn't matter all that much. If people are dissatisfied, tuff shit for them. The hospital still gets paid. If we were on a system where the patient was expected to pay at least a greater part of their hospital bills, only one in ten would be paid. I don't believe this is because people can't afford it ($1,200 isn't a lot of money in a day and age where people spend more than that on a TV), it's because if I had received that bill, I wouldn't pay it on the grouds that I was completely dissatisfied with the service my wife received. If you hire someone to put in a door at your house, and they show up and have no idea what they're doing and it takes them 2 weeks to finish, they make a mess, and the door doesn't work, what do you do? Do you pay them anyway? No. You would complain to them, possibly contact the Department of Comsumer Affairs, and you would refuse to pay them for their work. Because there is no direct contact between the "customer" and the "supplier" (so to speak) in the health-care system, there is no system of checks and ballances in place. Insurance companies aren't going to refuse to pay the bill for two resons: first of all, as far as they know, the patient received top-notch care. The second brings me to my second reason why this works for both the hospitals and the insurance companies themselves. That reason is that, more and more, hospitals are coming under the private ownership of the very insurance companies that pay them.

That's right. Insurance companies invest large sums of money, and even buy the titles to many of the hospitals they make their checks out to. Basically, if you break it down to simple terms, they're paying themselves. So the hospital writes a bill for $1,200 for low-grade care given by un-qualified doctors and medical students, the customer doesn't care about the bill because he/she only owes fifty dollars, the insurance company writes a check for the $1,200, but then the insurance company itself makes a profit on that money, because they own the hospital they wrote the check to.

Sound crazy? That's because it is. But it sounds right, given how upside down everything else has become.

hopelessness begins at home, part one

2006-07-20T13:16:00.001-04:00

Coming to a realization is defined as "the act of becoming fully aware of something as a fact". So it means that you have finally come to know something as true that has been true all along, you just hadn't... well... realized it yet. I believe that the specific phrase "coming to a realization" can also mean that you have become conscious of an idea that has long been tucked away in your brain, and has suddenly been shown the light of day, much to your own surprise. Today it was to my own surprise that I came to a new realization. It shouldn't shock me so much, because I come to new conclusions daily, with each day building on the one before. But today's was particularly amusing.

I'm going to break this up a bit, into several posts. The new blogger "beta" is extremely confusing, but now at least I can arrange my posts in the order I want them to be in, so for the first time, this will actually go: one, two three, four.

hopelessness begins at home... the official beginning:

I was watching a news clip from The Nation (a great political news magazine of which, as is the case with all magazines, I am not a subscriber, but should be) and what I saw opened my mind to a new, dim, reality. The clip was about the involvement of my generation in different politcal and social battles. The reporter visited three protests to gauge the involvement of his own generation in different issues. The subjects at hand were: the war in Iraq, a genocide in Darfur and the Sudan, and immigration. Both the Darfur protest in D.C. and the immigration rally in New York were well attended by younger generations. Although the key speaker at the Iraq war protest was a young Iraqi veteran (who was probably about 26 or 27 years old), the people in attendance were predominantly senior citizens, or people about to arrive there. The same can be said about a rally a close friend of mine attended when George Bush visited the Merchant Marine Academy here on Long Island. Their message was simple: if you care about American solders, then don't put them in harms way for no reason: stop the war in Iraq.

The absence of people my age at these events is disheartening at best, and scary in reality. The part that concerns me most is not that I am thinking this is a sign that "kids these days" dont care about the War, or who is President, or what crimes he commits. I know this is not the case. By and large, most people my age do not support the fictional "War on Terror" and are not, even the Republican ones, supportive of the Dubya or the Cheney Dick. And that is precisely what worries me. The strong convictions, but lack of involvement people my age show concerning social and political injustices and wrongdoings is the flag of hopelessness being raised above the heads of America's younger generation. They feel strongly about issues, and do take action on those they feel they can make a difference in (Immigration issues, and rallying support to end Genocide that is not being committed by the nation in which they are citizens). These are approachable subjects. But young Americans feel no political connection with their government, or their respesentatives. People my age feel very strongly about the Iraq war, oil companies freed from paying taxes, and the oil and drug industries grip on Congress and the Senate. But that is one tree that is just too big to climb. Why? Well that's where my realization comes in. I saw, very clearly, that there are two quite expansive inherant flaws that lie in the American voting system. It is these two things, and their effects, that have caused many an American, particularly young ones, to give up.

to be continued...

hopelessness begins at home, part two.

2006-07-20T13:15:00.001-04:00

ONE: The voting system. It stinks. Not only is it corrupt from its very roots, but even the upper layers don't allow American citizens a one for one chance of their vote being counted the same as someone elses. And here's why:

The foundation of America's voting system is intrinsically flawed because such a vast amount of money is necessary to run for any political office that the positions are really only open to people who are at least fairly wealthy (who else can quit their job to galavant about running for office?) and therefore they are more likely to be disconnected from their mostly lower and middle class constituents. Furthermore, even the wealthiest of political hopefulls aren't rich enough to finance their own campaigns. Nickle and dimeing donations out of regular citizens isn't going to raise a fraction of the total dollars needed to fund a successful campaign. So where must the money come from? Two places that are really one: extremely wealthy Americans and the companies they own and/or operate. And these companies and people aren't handing over two or three million dollars (or more) with a simple, "I like you. I think you'll do a good job as ________. So here, take my money." Even a child could tell you that even a Saint would think twice about that deal. What they're really saying is, "You take this money, and then when you're _________, and some bit of legislation that will cause me some indigestion comes up, you better remember me. If you don't, next election you'll be going door to door with a tin can." Corporate donations corrupt even the most honest representatives. And who can blame them? The best of the best must, at some point, have to say, "I've gotta give a little or I'll loose it to someone else who might give a lot." It is legitimized by a "lesser-of-two-evils" mentality that has to be adapted in order to remain in any political office.

Continued in part three.

hopelessness begins at home. part three.

2006-07-20T13:14:00.000-04:00

TWO: The voting system itself. From a flawed electoral-voting process that gives some people a full vote while basically disregarding the others, to a corporately-controlled voting process that virtually promises an inaccurate vote count, our voting system is falling to pieces beneath us.

Americans are beginning to understand that the antiquated system of electoral voting means some people have more of a say than others. And it isn't because people in Wyoming have fewer residents per electoral vote than people in New York. The problem is greater and more obvious than that. A simple analogy: Texas has 32 electoral votes (30 Congressman and two Senators which allows them 32 votes). That was a fact, so I suppose the analogy really begins here. Let's just say 49.75% of Texans cast their ballots for a Democrat candidate, and the other 50.25% go Republican. The Republican candidate gets all 32 of Texas' electoral votes. This basically means that the other 49.75% of the population of Texas might as well have not voted at all. Their votes are completely discounted. This is why a candidate can have many more votes than his opponent, but still loose the election.

There is a reason for this system, though, and it isn't a bad one. The system is in place because of a conflict of interest. Our government wanted to give the states equal power between one another to some degree. They didn't want people in the most populous states (New York, California, Connecticut, etc) the be able to exert their power over the less populous ones (South Dakota, Alabama, Iowa). The fact is that the average person in New York wants things to be very different than the average person in Alabama. The problem is that not everyone in New York or in Alabama is the same as the next guy (or girl) in New York or Alabama. A great example is Austin, Texas. I spent time there and met more liberals than I would meet at the deli on a New York morning. When I say liberal... I mean LIBERAL. The people I stayed with had a Taoist community center in their back-yard, and their next-door neighbors took me out to some posh downtown restaurant and proceeded to talk to me about how when you see an animal, you haven't chosen it... It has chosen you. The only way I would have felt as if I were in the prescence of a more liberal couple is if we were in the East Village and the "couple" consisted of two men in Gucci sunglasses. Or two women.

My point is that although this system of all or nothing electoral vote tallying was designed to keep Baptists in Alabama from being swept under by the needs and wants of gay men in California, it grossly ignores the fact that not everyone in Alabama is a bible thumping Republican. Nor are all the residents of California gay men sitting in coffee houses eating organic baby-greens with organic mango chutney salad then driving home in Priuses. I have traveled quite a bit, and I have met many extremely liberal people in states famous for their stark red status. As I mentioned earlier, Austin Texas is overflowing with people nearly drowning in leftist ideals. Birmingham, Alabama is packed with liberals. Such is the case in cities around the country. It goes the other way too. On any morning, walk into any deli on Long Island and you'll hear a surprising number of contractors talking about "killing towel-heads" and singing praises to their Comandante: the Gee Bush.

The answer, which is extremely clear but feared by politicians with a firm grip on their thrones is splitting the electoral votes fairly as the ballots are cast. This would proove to be particularly gruesome for conservatives who risk loosing votes in states that constantly go in their favor. But fair is fair. This system, which is analogous to the system of voting for members of Congress, is already in place in Maine and Nebraska, and it is the only system that guarantees both protection for less populous states' interests, as well as offering the most fairly balanced election possible. If we don't do away with the plurality voting system, people in the United States are going to begin to feel exponentially polarized as far as polotics are concerned. The divide between red and blue states will continue to grow, as will dissention within the states by members of the political minority.

Continued in part four...

hopelessness begins at home, part four.

2006-07-20T13:13:00.000-04:00

Just as bad, or worse than, the flawed electoral voting process is the fact that our election process is becoming increasingly corporately owned and operated. It is hard enough to trust that the count is accurate when it is the Federal Government tallying the numbers. But, as it is, not only the machines that register the votes are themselves owned, operated, and even designed by private corporatons, but those very same companies are in charge of tallying the votes. We are thus guaranteed inaccuracy in our voting process. Anybody who looks at this situation, and thinks that the person who designs and finances this system is being completely objective is either ignorant, or choosing to be ignorant. Nobody, when given that kind of power, would not take advantage of it at least to some degree. I'm not saying that rigged electronic voting machines are being cranked out by the thousands. That would be too obvious. Plus, with our current all or nothing electoral voting system, they don't even need to put faulty programming in all of them. A few strategically placed machines will do the job just fine. For instance... a few machines swinging votes one way or the other placed in key positions in Ohio or Florida can guarantee a win for the chosen candidate. All you need is for the machine to take, literally, several votes cast for one guy, and simply record them for the other guy. And since Republicans in Congress have fiercly battled againsts a physical receipt after you place a vote (argued in Florida before electronic voting machines were placed in the swing state for the '04 election), there is absolutely no way to contest which person the machine... excuse me... the COMPUTER says is the winner.

A machine that uses a lever to cast a physical ballot is not tamper-proof by any means. But it does mean that a bi-partisan group of actual human beings is required to physically count the votes. This leaves more of a margin of error than using a computer, but that is counteracted very heavily by the fact that it also brings more checks and ballances into the equation. A computer can be programmed to do anything the programmer wants it to do. This includes changing, or simply deleting certain votes. Because many members of Congress don't want people to get a receipt after casting a vote at an electronic machine, a re-count after a computerized election is simply not possible. The fact of the matter is that most of these members of Congress happen to be Republicans, whether you want to admit it or not. Not to say the Dems are completely honest, but not wanting people to have proof they voted wreaks of fraud.

I truly believe that these things give Americans, particularly the younger, left-leaning generations, a feeling of extreme hopelessness. My generation, to a large degree, has lost faith in its government. We know full well that we have little to no control. Not with an unfair, corrupted voting system, and not with a corporately-funded Congress and Senate. The scary part of all this isn't just America's future loosing faith in its nation. It is detrimental to the very existence of America itself. A nation is not a tangible object. It isn't a deck of cards or an ocean that simply exists whether we want to believe in it or not. A nation is a dream that survives on the willingness of its members to continue believing in it. When people loose faith, they stop believing. When people stop believing, the nation no longer exists. Right now, America is doing what many great nations of the past have done: It is taking its own existence for granted. Americans just believe their Nation will always be there. But if a large number of Americans stop caring, it won't be.

This is the end. If you have read this first, you must go back to the post entitled "Hopelessness Begins At Home, Part One" and then work your way through consecutively until you find yourself back here. If this alone made sense to you as it is, pick up the phone book, look under "psychotherapists" and call the first one. That was not funny. I'm sorry.

Due

2006-06-27T12:53:00.000-04:00

We all confront information daily, and I find it hard to have even the slightest ounce of respect for people who openly choose to ignore it. It is one thing to view the information (facts, really) and say, "I don't believe it because..." It is something completely different to say, in essence, "I am choosing to ignore the information". Ignorance is bliss, but choosing to be ignorant must lead to some state of mind in which one is completely at ease, but at the same time is in constant turmoil. I don't think there is one sane person alive who chooses to ignore impotant information and is completely at peace with themselves about it. They would like us to think they are, because only in acquiring the personification of somebody at ease can they truly convince others (as well as themselves) that they believe in what they claim to believe in. If they were to show any sign of doubt, others would begin to doubt their sincerity (however unwarranted any affirmation of sincerity may be) and they themselves would have to come to grips with the reality that they have chosen to live a lie, and then they must stand and face it.

Let's all dig our graves and lie in them for a while. Hopefully it will stop raining and the holes won't fill up. Then we can climb out and live on knowing we have cheated the system.

And so here we begin:

2006-06-19T09:48:00.000-04:00

I ask myself every day, "where are we going?". Because I'm just not so sure anymore. When I was young I remember clearly that it never rained on Saturdays, and that America was a hero among nations. But where are we now?

I'm definitely "old enough for bitter" (thanks Matthew Pryor), but definitely in a different sense. He's mad because all his friends got rich and famous and the best he got was opening for the band who opened for Weezer back in like 1999. I'm bitter because I'm doing my best, but nobody else cares.

Last night while shopping at Whole Foods like every boring married man does on Sunday (even though my life isn't so boring.. most people aren't as excited about going to the grocery store as I am) I saw not one, but two Hummers in the parking lot. No doubt some ignorant prick of a man donning Dockers shorts and a polo shirt (tucked). If he is going casual he is wearing leather boat shoes. For a more sophisticated look there will be on his whitened feet a shiny pair of penny loafers (pennies polished to an almost platinum sheen). Either that or it is a mom and her kids shopping at Whole Foods for no other reason than to be seen there spending exhorbitant amounts of money while some kid bagges all her meat, fish, fruit, and organically labeled body scrub into thirty-five separate bags; everything neatly rubber-banded and taped shut to avoid the slightest chance of spilling.

And here I am... Trying my best to secure a future for myself, my wife, and the baby inside her. It's disheartening to be the one human being standing in the midst of a gigantic herd of blind cattle mooing and stampeding valiantly. Adorned with nationalistic grins and cooing gracefully their anthem, they drag me and my own loved ones towards what looks like a beautiful ocean of ignorance and bliss, but is really some gigantic gorge whose bottom is just low enough that we will suffer but not die once we get there.

I know it might seem like I'm making too much of a big deal about Hummers and McMansions, but I remember one time not too long ago when weather forecasters made a big deal about a category one hurricane heading toward Florida. They called it Katrina and everyone ignored them. Then we all watched on TV while people drowned in their attics and Brownie did a fantastic job of opening up a wonderful opportunity for real-estate investors. And you know what I say? Actually... my great grandfather said it. Really, come to think of it, everyone says it, but ignores it when they choose to. I suppose it's one of the millions of things people say out of habit, but don't really have faith in. It is: "better be safe than sorry".

You know what? I drive a Toyota Prius. I recycle. Why? Two reasons: One is it saves me money. I'm not hugging trees... I'm an asshole who wants more money to spend on clothes and Apple computers. I love to laugh at people while I'm filling up my 7 gallon tank with premium for about $22, which will take me a little less than 400 miles (not highway miles, mind you, I live on Long Island. We're all about the stop and go). The second reason is because it's better to be safe than sorry. The fact is that global warming is occuring. I myself think it is obvious from the data that it is because of human intervention, and not a natural cycle. But even if it ends up that it is a natural cycle, and we are all going to drown anyway, isn't it better to save some money along the way? And isn't it better to be safe than sorry? I just realized what a lame sounding phrase that can be when repeated over and over. I sound like my mother already... but when she's right the woman is right.

So moms and dads... cut the ignorant, pompous, self-serving attitude and drop the SUVs. You say you're doing it to keep your family safe, but everyone knows SUVs aren't any safer than sedans. And if you didn't know, I'm telling you right now. Besides, we all know that, even at forty, there is still a need and a desire to feel cool. Dads dont buy Hummers to keep their families safe. Dad buys a Hummer for mom so dad can drive it and feel cool. Dad can also tell his secretary that he bought his wife a Hummer. This makes the secretary dream about dad more, and increases dad's chances of having a good time at the office.

And finally... for all those dads in crisis and tape-up teenagers: SUVs are no longer cool. What famous people drive them? Let's see... the Governator. Oh yeah... he's really cool. He's about as cool as Hulk Hogan's handlebar moustache is in 2006. Who drives a Toyota Prius? Cameron Diaz, Will Ferrel, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Maher, Alicia Siverstone, Larry David, Brad Pitt, Billy Joel, Harrison Ford, Jack Black, Jack Nicholson, Patricia Arquette, Tom Hanks, Tim Robbins, Robin Williams, and Price fucking Charles. Nobody is cooler than Charles the Prince of goddamn England. I've seen the pictures of him with all those girls. So everyone doused in Hugo Boss cologne sporting tape-ups (another new yet perplexing phenomenon is the tape-up), if you want to be about as cool as the Governatah and G Dubya... go get yourself a big 'ol Cadillac Escalade or a nicely overpriced monster truck and keep dreaming that you're cool. If you actually want to attract models... know that they want to go out with guys who are doing what will be cool in a year or two, not what WAS cool in middle-Arkansas in 1998.

If you don't stop, those of us getting pulled along by your ignorance are going to have to start fighting back with equal ignorance. Let's all buy cheap old 80's Lincolns with steel bumpers and ram SUVs in parking lots (parked and empty, of course). Although, given the American attitude of being steadfast and stupid when faced with obvious choices, this might just make SUV drivers become even more resilient in their plight to ignore everything and strengthen their resolve to believe in nothing but their own dreams.